Posts tagged methyl

You may have heard a piano technician talk about voicing saying “Well we can voice those hammers down for you if you’d like”. First of all, most don’t know what voicing entails. Second, manipulating the hammers ‘down’ (up or sideways for that matter) doesn’t exactly fit any kind of tonal response you would think of. But before we get carried away describing what is going on, let’s define voicing: Voicing is the manipulation of very hard pieces of felt called hammers which strike the strings on the piano. At that strike point (please refer to the blog called Bright and Brassy Sounding Pianos) the hammers can either create warm sound, brassy sound, nasal sound, thin sound, percussive sound – all from the strike point of the hammer. Voicing then changes or alters the support of that strike point to get the desired response out of the piano. Voicing ‘down’ means to make the piano mellow while voicing ‘up’ means to make the piano more strident.

So here’s the pseudo exhaustive (or exhausting… take yer pick) list of what goes on in the voicing world.

Needling

Filing

Hammer hardener

Hammer softener

Steam voicing

Methyl hydrate/water mix

So i’m not going to pass judgement on what i think is correct voicing and/or techniques, but i WILL describe what’s going on in each of those methods. Without further adieu, here’s the list on what technicians do to pianos.

1. Needling… needling is by far the most common process in voicing. Pictured to the right is a voicing tool that i own. You will see that it has a needle in the tip. When you poke holes in hammers, it releases some of the tension and almost… ‘fluffs’ up the hammer. In doing so, the hammer can support the crown – the very tip to bring out the optimal sound of the piano. Most often this is used in reducing ‘high’ points – where one note will stick out above it’s neighbours.

2. Filing… hammers over time with heavy use will eventually become grooved. These grooves quite often make undesirable tones. Filing the hammers reshapes the worn parts so that the grooves are minimized. Please see the picture on the left for a hammer file voicing tool.

3&4 Hammer hardener and softener are both commercially available substances which drastically alter tone by use of chemicals.

5&6 Both steam voicing and methyl hydrate/water change the hammers by fluffing up the hammers much like a piece of paper when it gets wet. When paper gets wet and then dries, it is no longer flat but ‘crinkled’. In like manner, hammers ‘puff up’ with the addition of methyl hydrate and water mixed or steam voicing.

So there you have it – the entire list (that i know of) to alter piano tone.